Kent Nguyen has written a very nice and entertaining review of KWord (dot mirror available) as part of a more extensive KOffice examination. With the help of an alter-ego or two, as well as some editorial guidance from Tina of Newsforge, Kent covers everything from KWord frames to component embedding and groupware features, with more than a few illustrative screenshots. Over the next few weeks, look forward to Kent's reviews of KSpread, KIllu, KPresenter, Kivio, and Krayon.

Comments

It appears that Adobe has decided that KIllustrator imposed upon their trademark "Adobe Illustrator", and have sued for copyright infrigement! Check the www.koffice.org site, all mention of killustrator on the main page is gone.

Can you believe it? Adobe's offices are completely shut down from July 2 to July 9 for the Independence Day holiday. All the Adobe PR people I called had voice mail saying "I won't be checking my messages."

I even tried calling an outside PR firm that handles some of their stuff and they wouldn't comment on the matter because it was a "legal issue."

AFAIK they did send a "cease+desist", or the German equivalent, an "Abmahnung". However, they had it sent by a German law firm (maybe they have no in house lawyers, or none with any competence in German trademark law). This law firm bills the adressee of the "cease+desist" for the legal fees.
The expensive bill is based on the fact that they fixed the value of claim (??? Streitwert) at half a million euro. (Source: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/odi-03.07.01-000/ )

On the other hand, there is at least one law firm in Germany who would have started sending "cease+desist" letters (and bills) to all owners of websites in Germany who happen to mention killustrator. So what's happening here is comparatively civilized...

>Adobe is correct to defend its trademark. The KDE project has to come up with better names, like they already did with Krayon, etc.<

Bullshit. Adobe Illustrator or Illustrator are Adobe's trademarks. Killustrator is not. It is so simple. Or should we also remove Kword and Kwrite
because of Microsoft, or should I mention www.krayon.co.uk, or www.krayonbox.com, or Krayon petrol jelly for children, or The electric krayon paint shop, or Krayon Technologies, or Krayon Computers, or www.multimania.com/krayon, or Krayon Systems and Design Company, or Krayon's Gallery in Sillicon Valley etc. etc.

Killustrator is not, but adding one letter doesnt add significant distinction to the name.

Yes. KDE will have to rename every application if it doent want to pay lawyers. Just because unfortunately Word has become a household name and synonym for a word processing program doesnt mean that it lost its legal status as a trademark ( if it is one - I dont know ).

The main problem is that you have trademarks in every country, and almost no mean to check them.
The us trademarks and canadian are easily searchable, others are not. And do you have to care about all of them?
krayon doesnt seem to be a trademark, at least in the us.

urls and domain names, shop names and program names are not trademarks.
A trademark is expensive covers onyl a limited number of categories (something like: wood products, software) and gives you a lot of rights once it is issued on your behalf.

>Killustrator is not, but adding one letter doesnt add significant distinction to the name.<

You are not right. Adding a letter does significant distinction to a name. That's the point. Or you wont be able to give name to anything at all. And I suggest one more letter to be added to Killustrator. Rename it to Killustraitor = Kill-US-Traitor

(traitor=Etymology: Middle English traitre, from Old French, from Latin traditor, betray,
1 : one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty
2 : one who commits treason )

>krayon doesnt seem to be a trademark, at least in the us<

Don't tell me we can't face the same problem if
Krayon Computers, Krayon Technologies or Krayon Systems and Design Company decide to sue KDE because of using the name Krayon.

But you have to keep in mind that trademarks are only valid for one field - if someone has a trademark on a pen called Illustrator it doesn't have any bearing on a computer program. So all of those Krayons aren't going to be any problem for KDE because they have nothing to do with computer programs. Adobe is causing trouble because their vector drawing program is called Illustrator.

Where did you get your law degree? You really don't have much of a clue about the real world, business, or human nature, do you. AC is right on. A single letter change is not protection. Mis-spelling a name is not protection. Would the program have been called KIllustrator if Adobe Illustrator didn't exist? No, it wouldn't. If it was Adobe NosePie, the program would be called KNosePie. Is that fair? Does it really matter? Adobe has full right to sue. Will they win? Again, does it matter? Having the pay legal bills to defend a questionable stance isn't really worth it in my book. I've been waiting for MS to attack KWord for a long time. It WILL happen one day. Why? Because they can, and it will be a problem for KDE and Open Source in general.

IMHO, Microsoft causing trouble over the name KWord would be no problem at all - it would be the best publicity we could ask for. Adobe is a different matter - while they're well known in computing, they are not known to the average man on the street. Microsoft Word vs. KWord is news, Adobe Illustrator vs. KIllustrator is not.

About business: I can remember your business concepts on kde-user mailing list. Not visionary at all.

About human nature: should I repeat here what you wrote to me? Very agressive, attacking me personally, my profession...What a human nature.

>A single letter change is not protection. Mis-spelling a name is not protection.<

Who says that it was a single letter change? I hope you are not KIllustrator's developer. Who told you that Killustrator's developers did it deliberately - changed a letter or misspelled it. I doubt it. Illustrator is a common word, used by many people and companies, and KDE people probably thought that adding K to Illustrator would be enough to make distinction from other similar applications (also
Adobe Illustrator). I understand them and support them. I am a lawyer but not that kind of lawyer employed by Adobe. Threteaning KDE with a lawsuit is immoral for many reasons:
1. They know KDE is nonprofit
2. They know KDE has not have money to pay lawyers
3. They know there are some other graphic apps which have a word 'Illustrator' as part of their names
4. They applied for a trademark (and got it,.. sic!) for a common used word
5. They know that their application is not known as 'illustrator' but as Adobe Illustrator.

>Would the program have been called KIllustrator if Adobe Illustrator didn't exist? No, it wouldn't.<

Why not? Adobe hasn't invented the word 'illustrator'.

>If it was Adobe NosePie, the program would be called KNosePie.<

C'mon. Your underestimate kde developers.

>Adobe has full right to sue.<
Adobe has not full right to sue. I'll try to explain it later (but, huh, why I'm waisting my time on you?)

>Will they win? Again, does it matter?<

Will they win? I don't know. Nobody knows. But I think KDE have very good arguments here (of course not if KDE admits that it was just a 'single letter change' as you are trying to impose here.
Does it matter? It matters to me. Why TF should Adobe have monopol on common used words?

That is one solution (and the best one). Another solution could be some lobbying or even asking for legal assistance (IBM, Compaq, HP, maybe Apple also, companies which are involved in open source movement and can tell Adobe to shut up).

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'A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark.'

Is KIllustrator really 'confusingly similar mark'?
In my opinion not. In eauropean law practice it is not. If the name was Andobe Illustrator or Ardobe Illustrator etc. I would be the first who would say: what are you doing guys?

But what is very, very interesting here:

'A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods. In short, a trademark is a brand name.'

Look here: '...used, or intended to be used, in commerce...' and '...to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others...'

KDE is nonprofit, Killustrator is not commercial application, it is not used nor intended to be used in commerce. And this is a good argument in an eventual lawsuit.

Well, I'd have to say that (unfortunately) it is likely the phrase coca cola is spoken, printed and seen more often than the term term "illustrator". In fact, coca cola is found in slightly more documents on Google than illustrator is (586,000 vs. 519,000).

But I do understand your point. In this age of litigation the question isn't are you "in the right", it is "do you have enough money and resources to prove your point better than your adversary".

2.
The thretened developer does it for free and is really "noncommercial". There are other developers who get paid = commercial.
Distributions sell it = commercial
(just because they sometimes dont demand money doesnt make it free)

> 'A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods. In short, a trademark is a brand name.'

>Look here: '...used, or intended to be used, in commerce...' and '...to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others...'

>KDE is nonprofit, Killustrator is not commercial application, it is not used nor intended to be used in commerce. And this is a good argument in an eventual lawsuit.

i generally agree, but not with that last argument. my argument is:

look here: '...and to indicate the source of the goods. In short, a trademark is a brand name.'

is "illustrator" a brand name? is "word" a brand name? i don't think so. if you wore a t-shirt that said "illustrator" on it, would anyone know what it meant? or with "word?" (btw, is word trademarked?) does the name "illustrator" for a software product indicate the source of that software product? if someone said to a severely computer illiterate person "hey i got a program called illustrator," would they know it was from adobe? no. "illustrater" does not indicate the source of the goods. and it is not (or shouldn't be) a brand name. therefore, i think the trademark is invalid and should not have been granted. and i do think that killustrator is a significant distinction because illustrator is a common word, actually means something, and describes the application (as opposed to nosepie). if nosepie was an application that had nothing to do with noses and pies, if the word nosepie was trademarked, and if there was a kde version called knosepie, i could see how that would cause problems, because it would be an uncommon, distinguishing name, and therefore would indicate what source it came from if the program was as popular as adobe illustrator. but killustrator describes the program. AND it indicates where it comes from (the kde project, and anyone who is even remotely familiar with it knows that many if not most kde applications start with a k.) there is no way that killustrator could be confused with adobe illustrator or vice versa, because the word "illustrator" is so freaking common, and it describes what type of application it is. so adobe should not win. they should lose and be forced to give up "illustrator" as a trademark.

i don't agree with your last argument. i could be wrong on this, but maybe they mean that the commerce part only applies to the trademark itself. maybe you could violate a trademark even if your product is not commercial and you're not techinically "manufacturing" it. but then again: '...to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others' so i kindof see your point. however, it depends on how you define "manufacture." if the kde team is "manufacturing" kde, then there could be an argument IF the products were indeed indistinguishable (which they are not, IMO.) as far as "commerce" goes, kde could be considered non-commercial, but i think they could still get sued because of the wording of the argument. >'A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others...' theoretically, the trademark itself is commercial, but you could violate it by just being a manufacturer, or having another "good". so theoretically, even if programming is not manufacturing, your product would still be a "good of others," and therefore subject to the patent issues (>'A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others.') the trademark is used in trade with a (commercial) good, but who says the "goods of others" have to be commercial? hmm... if a trademark can only be used with a traded good and in commerce, then killustrator could not be patented if it wanted to, because it is given away for free. oh, i don't know. i don't know anything about trademark law. i'm just a 17 yo linux enthusiast :).

The reason for this is as follows:
I am currently developing a program. I tried it in my own way, but it didnt really work out. The commercial program has some really nice ideas about how to display/control the data, and I simply copied it.

Now my bad conscience hunts me, I feel guilty and I am sure that the day after I put screenshots on sourceforge I will receive a letter from a lawyer.

So what should I do?

In particular I "copied" one widget, which I think is original:
It consists of a listview, which controls the graphical representation of the data.

The graphical representation is standard, but the ease with which you can manipulate it through the listview is probably novel. I dont know if I would have come up with the same idea without having seen this program before.

If anyone has examples of programs which have possibly something like this please post them here.

I haven't heard recently about any company trying to enforce GUI copyrights in that sense so I don't think that is going to be a problem. (Apple has bullied people over it's Aqua style, but it has more to do with the graphics than anything else.
What you perhaps should be wary of, is patenting of the widgets. Adobe has sued Macromedia over a certain kind of widget it has patented. See here:http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0008/10.adobe.shtml

As much as I like KDE as a whole and KOffice, there is one thing that I really, well, almost hate: The habit of naming any program with a "k". kedit, kwrite, kmail, kword, koffice.... OK, everybody knows what the program is doing und that it's running under KDE, that's a point.

Apart from that it's simply boring and often enough stupid sounding. And it has disadvantages, as this Adobe thing shows. The chances for them are probably not to bad, and even if not, who would be paying the lawyers for the KDE team?

So, my advice: Take this as an opportunity and look for some creative, unique name! Maybe even starting with "k", like "krayon", but, please, not simply putting a "k" in front of something.

Odd, I've just had a course on patents, trademarks etc - and descriptive names like

the icecream "creamy ice",
the car "fast vehicle",
the illustration program "illustrator" or
the company "nano tools"

are NOT possible to protect using trademarks. This is exactly why most startups have to change their names before going serious (you can't protect the name "nano tools", but ZockFoo is perfectly OK).

At least, that's the way it works in Europe. If this works the way other things work in the US, you can register ANY trademark, but whether it is guilty or not has to be decided in court. Large companies like Adobe will then be able to - very effectively - defend their too descriptive names by simply saying "boo" to smaller competitors.

I have nothing to do with the comment regarding petition. I am looking for the e-mail address. I have been trying to order an adobe acrobat 9 download. Each time I try I get "unabel to connect to URL" can you help a want to be customer. Janine

I tried KOffice when it first officially came out. I wasn't that impressed. It needed time to mature. And I have been waiting patiently.

After reading this review, I can see that KOffice exceeds my expectations (assuming other apps are as good ad KWord seems to be)! Now, if we only could get 100% compatibility with MS-Office file-formats...

Great job KOffice-team! I'll be among the first to download Koffice when it gets out of beta-status!

KWord? Isn't a word 'Word' Microsoft's trademark?
And menubar on top of desktop alla MacOS, isn't it something Apple can sue kde for? And Win2000 window decoration? And some new icons that look like WinXP's icons? Arghhhh....
Adobe hasn't invented word illustrator, there are some other graphic apps which have 'illustrator' as a part of their name for example: Auto-Illustrator
(Auto-Illustrator is the leading auto-generative vector graphic design package. It is the smarter, more experienced vector version of Autoshop. Intended to sit alongside your existing vector graphics applications, it is most useful when generating abstract graphical artwork for use in web and screen design, printed media and animation/video production.http://www.auto-illustrator.com/main.html ).
Should I mention F4Illustrator, Periodic Table Illustrator, Tech Illustrator, Tatoo Illustrator
(... Debi Kienel, better known as " The Illustrator" has been tattooing for 24 years
and is dedicated to quality renderings that are truly works of art. ... hehe), Bible Illustrator for Windows, EZ Illustrator, Equation Illustrator
(... Equation Illustrator V 1.2.1 Shareware ($20.00). Equation Illustrator V has been
designed to ease the difficult task of combining graphics and complicated ... ), Meet The Illustrator, 'Donald Duck illustrator is dead..',
Illustrator Pak (100 AWESOME PLUG & PLAY CORELDRAW TEMPLATES!), etc.

No, MS can't sue KDE over KWord, nor over KOffice... they don't have trademarks on those, and the expressions are too general to be trademarked. Illustrator is another matter: Adobe _has_ a trademark on this, and if they don't defend it, they'll loose it. So it's entirely understandable that Adobe is angry... heck, just call it KVector, it's not gonna hurt.
(On slashdot, they ran a story about this, there are some nice suggestions for a different name. KOffice people, check it out)

The last time I tried koffice was quite a long time ago when 1.0 was released

I started kword, kspread, and all the others, wrote a couple of random lines and clicked on the icons...WOW it looked cool

And then I tried opening msoffice files. I know the format of these files is proprietary, but as I had been able to open & see them with Star office / Abiword / Gnumeric, I expected it to work. Result: segfault.

If I remember correctly, even trying to save to the .doc format led to a segfault. The UI fellt sluggish when working with large files.

I also remember trying to copy / paste text from a file into kspread...which led to very disappointing results. With gnumeric it worked like a charm.

It's not a troll..I just want to know whether koffice has improved in these areas. I f yes, then I might give it another chance